RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC) March 28, 2019 RSOC Meeting Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat ATTENDEES --------------------------------- Sarah Banks (Chair) Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting) Christian Huitema (incoming IAB Lead) Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting) Mark Nottingham Adam Roach Peter Saint-Andre Robert Sparks (outgoing IAB Lead) Portia Wenze-Danley (IETF LLC Board Liaison, non-voting) REGRETS --------------------------------- Tony Hansen MINUTES --------------------------------- 1. Administrivia The minutes of the 2019-02-19 RSOC meeting were approved. Christian Huitema will be the new IAB Lead for the RSOC. Mark Nottingham will replace Robert Sparks as the second IAB member on the RSOC. 2. Agenda Bash Sarah Banks noted that she had some slides for an executive session at the end of the meeting. 3. Fifty Years of RFCs Heather Flanagan reported that she received feedback from John Klensin on draft-flanagan-fiftyyears-02; once she incorporates that feedback, she will ask the RSOC to endorse sending the document to the IAB for publication. 4. The Big Picture – Operations and Project Management - SLA Heather Flanagan answered questions about the current SLA and described how the publication process works. - How is the publication process being run? - https://www.rfc-editor.org/pubprocess/ - What are the lines of responsibility? - RPC manages the publication process - RSE has general oversight, but does not manage any day-to-day operations - Stream managers can (and do) request exceptions Heather Flanagan noted that she doe not edit documents, because she is the arbiter of disputes between authors and editors. Project plans and milestones are reported via: - Weekly meetings between the RSE and RPC - Automated email weekly and monthly to the IESG, IAB - Monthly updates of the SLA report - Monthly update via the IAB liaison report (cc: RSOC) - Formal reporting at each IETF Progress against the SLA is measured via the SLA chart, periodic discussions with the IESG, and a new vendor satisfaction survey about the RPC. Publication rates are currently not up to SLA expectations. The RPC does more than just publish documents; they also do tools testing, plan and execute tutorials, handle subpoenas, make ongoing website and process improvements, etc. This efforts are not measured in the SLA. Various budget decisions have not survived the transitions from IAOC to IETF LLC. The RPC has been directed by the RSE and earlier stream managers to prioritize the format work above the publication process, but unfortunately, this exception was not well-documented. The RPC has added editorial staff, but the funds and level of training required limits how many FTEs can be added and how effective they can be. Knowing that more resources would be needed to meet the SLA during the transition process, the RSOC in 2016 asked to add up to 3.25 FTE; the IAOC only approved adding 1 FTE. * Action: The RSOC will discuss alternatives to help get documents into better shape before they hit the RFC Editor Queue, in order to ease the burden on the RPC. Heather Flanagan noted that there are two categories of documents that take more time to edit. The first is anything that is in a cluster, because when there are a large number of documents with interdependencies, they have to be edited in parallel to ensure that the terminology matches in all of the documents. The second is anything with a YANG module; the RPC was instructed to use a certain set of tools to extract the YANG modules from documents, but it turns out that there is only very rough consensus in the YANG community about those tools, and the editors get caught between the people who wrote the tools to work a certain way and the authors who don't like how the tools work. Mark Nottingham noted that the amount of time needed to train an editor had been mentioned as a barrier, and asked if there was anything more detailed than the RFC Style Guide that describes the editing process for a document. * Action: Heather Flanagan to put together a more complete process document on the process of editing an RFC for publication. Peter Saint-Andre noted that the time spent on things not in the SLA could be use to help make the argument about the need to increase the RPC headcount. Sarah Banks said that the spike for non-SLA items is different for every item. Heather Flanagan said that when there are extraordinary events that require a lot of time that is not counted towards the SLA, she mentions them in her monthly reports. * Action: Heather Flanagan to add an agenda item on running through the SLA to the next RSOC agenda. Heather Flanagan proposed the following SLA change and exception process: The SLA will be reviewed annually (in January), specifically with an eye towards adjusting the targets based on both the activity of the past year and any expected changes in the coming year. The RSE will discuss the SLA and propose any changes with the following entities: - Stream Managers - RSOC - RSE - IETF Executive Director - Vendor Final approval of any SLA requires consensus between the Stream Managers and the RSOC and acceptance from the vendor. * Action: The RSOC will talk more about the statement, "Final approval of any SLA requires consensus between the Stream Managers and the RSOC and acceptance from the vendor." 5. Contract Review Sarah Banks reported that RFC 6635 Section 3.1 states that the RSOC would "perform annual reviews of the RSE and report the result of these reviews to the IAB." In 2015, the Internet Society human resources department expressed concern that this would raise questions about whether the RSE was a contractor or an employee. The outcome of this was that the RSE remains a contractor, and a performance review has not been performed since 2015. Sarah Banks noted that RFC 6635 has not been updated, and some people are questioning what is going on. The RSE continues to evaluate the RPC. The RSOC has discussed "how things are going" and "are we getting what we paid for," but may be able to to better. Sarah proposes that the RSOC begin an annual RSE Goals review: - Performed annually by RSOC, communicated by RSOC to IAB - Yearly, the RSOC works with the RSE to document a list of stated goals for the upcoming 12 months - This list of goals can/may change, and changes are reviewed and approved by RSOC - The list of goals is then updated, the changes noted and the revised list is shared with the IAB - This list should be created and reviewed at the March IETF meeting, or in a monthly meeting prior to the July IETF meeting - In the July IETF meeting, the RSOC should: - Approve the review of the prior year’s goals, and - Approve the new list of goals for the upcoming 12 months, and - Share both outcomes with the IAB With this proposal, the review is about the goals themselves rather than the contractor. 6. Executive Sesssion